As electrical communication devices and their associated applications become more sophisticated and powerful, their ability to gather and share information with other devices also becomes more important. The proliferation of these intelligent, inter networked devices has resulted in a need for increasing data throughput capacity on the networks to which they are connected to provide the improved data rates necessary to satisfy this demand. As a result, existing communication protocol standards are constantly improved or new ones created. Nearly all of these standards require or significantly benefit, directly or indirectly, from the communication of high-definition signals over wired networks. Transmission of these high definition signals, which may have more bandwidth and, commensurately, higher frequency requirements, need to be supported in a consistent fashion. However, even as more recent versions of various standards provide for theoretically higher data rates or speeds, they are still speed limited by the current designs of certain physical components. Unfortunately, the design of such physical components is plagued by a lack of understanding of what is necessary to achieve consistent signal quality at multi-gigahertz and higher frequencies.
For example, communication jacks are used in communication devices and equipment for the connection or coupling of cables that are used to transmit and receive the electrical signals that represent the data being communicated. A registered jack (RJ) is a standardized physical interface for connecting telecommunications and data equipment. The RJ standardized physical interface includes both jack construction and wiring pattern. A commonly used RJ standardized physical interface for data equipment is the RJ45 physical network interface, also referred to as an RJ45 jack. The RJ45 jack is widely used for local area networks such as those implementing the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 802.3 Ethernet protocol. The RJ45 jack is described in various standards, including one that is promulgated by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)/Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) in ANSI/TIA-1096-A.
All electrical interface components, such as cables and jacks, including the RJ45 jack, not only resist the initial flow of electrical current, but also oppose any change to it. This property is referred to as reactance. Two relevant types of reactance are inductive reactance and capacitive reactance. Inductive reactance may be created, for example, based on a movement of current through a cable that resists, which causes a magnetic field that induces a voltage in the cable. Capacitive reactance, on the other hand, is created by an electrostatic charge that appears when electrons from two opposing surfaces are placed close together.
To reduce or avoid any degradation of transmitted signals, the various components of a communications circuit preferably have matching impedances. If not, a load with one impedance value will reflect or echo part of a signal being carried by a cable with a different impedance level, causing signal failures. For this reason, data communication equipment designers and manufacturers, such as cable vendors, design and test their cables to verify that impedance values, as well as resistance and capacitance levels, of the cables comply with certain performance parameters. The RJ45 jack is also a significant component in nearly every communications circuit, however, jack manufacturers have not provided the same level of attention to its performance. Thus, although problems related to existing RJ45 jacks are well documented in tests and their negative impact on high frequency signal lines is understood, the industry seems reluctant to address the issues for this important component of the physical layer. Consequently, there is a need for an improved high speed communications jack.